Staying in the lap of luxury for a couple of days is definitely my idea of ending an expedition, even if we did duck out early.We walked along the cliffs of the beach to the nearby Larcomar shopping center, which is built right into the cliffs. If you didn't know it was there you might miss it.

We wandered the stores for a while and then found a very nice restaurant overlooking the ocean. The smell of the ocean was very inviting, but the Pisco sours and the Ceviche topped off the lunch indeed.On the way back we found a fruit guy selling bananas and passionfruit and such, but he also had something I had never seen before, which looked like a giant green been pod, about a foot long. Never one to shy away from an experience, I asked how you eat this giant bean and swapped the peruvian equivalent of $0.35c for it.The guy cut a slice of skin the length of the pod and revealed a white flesh with big black beans inside. He pulled out one of the segments which had a bean in and made a gesture that I could eat the flesh aroudn the bean, but not the bean itself... showing me the bean and then putting his hands to his throut like he was choking - I got the idea pretty quickly.So I pull out one of the white flesh segments and pop it in my mouth and experience a little juice from the flesh, and spit out the giant bean into my hand. After the juice was gone, I was left with sort of a cross between wet toilet paper and cotton balls in my mouth.

I was showing Susan how this thing was segmented, when two women from New Jersey passed by us and asked "what is that"? Naturally I said, "I don't know - would you like some"? Apparently they were as adventurous as me, and they tried it too, with pretty much the same result - wet toilet paper & cotton balls.I still don't know what it was, but it won't be a fruit I will be having again anytime soon.

We fly out tomorrow night and have managed to juggle a few flights so we don't end up going round the US 3 times before we get home, so we will drop into Houston and transfer to Hobby Airpost and jump a Southwest flight to Phoenix.

Our dogs will be just so thrilled to have us home, and I know Susan will be just as thrilled to greet them as well.

Comments

Mercedes Wall
on Jan 11, 2010 at 06:46PM

Hello,I enjoyed reading your post on Miraflores. My family and I live in NJ. We are traveling to Lima in February. My husband and I have two very young children. We are looking to rent an aprtment or condo for a week in the heart of it all. I'm just curious to know where you stayed and if you would recommend it.